Let's face it, though: nobody takes up a career in the creative/entertainment fields because they've got an insatiable hunger for Aldi dog-food or because they simply can't imagine a winter without a mild touch of frostbite - they're in it (at least in part) for the ackers. We can't condemn an artist for coining it in (well; we can, but it generally comes across as sour grapes). No; we have to accept that - by some baffling quirk in human values - a pudding-faced little man can pull in around £3m a year for dourly firing moderately amusing quips and doing voice-overs, while a nurse is lucky to trudge home covered in sick and piss with £25,000 a year to call his or her own. That's the world we live in, and it looks like there's little to be done about it at the moment. Hell; it could even be argued that there's something of a tradition of tight-fisted, money-hungry comics - Ken Dodd is a name that springs to mind. The difference is that Doddy never really cast himself as a "political commentator", and Carr has.
What people object to, is somebody like Carr presenting themselves as - albeit in an incredibly lightweight capacity on that God-awful Channel Four show he smirks his way through with Lauren Laverne and the others - an outspoken opponent of privilege, greed, and corruption whilst at the same time funnelling shekels into a tax-haven quicker than he can crack wise about the disabled and date-rape.
That the tax-haven is in Jersey, by the way, just makes it seem so much worse, doesn't it? Is there anywhere shadier in the UK than that weird little land-nugget? Fans of "Bergerac" will remember it chiefly for Charlie Hungerford swanning about the place in a white Roller, and all his pals turning out to be bent arms-dealers or murderers - but I digress...
What's almost as galling as the fact that this overpaid mediocrity has been able to act so hypocritically is his pathetically sincere, gag-free apology/explanation: an accountant asked him "would you like to pay less tax? It's totally legal" he says - as though that makes it OK - no more than "a serious error in judgement", in fact. The implication here is clear: you'd all do the same thing. Maybe 8 out of 10 cunts would, but I don't think that justifies it; isn't it possible that one or two people might think "three million p.a is doing alright, and that even if 40/50% of that was scooped up by the taxman, I'm still a long way from having to dine at a soup-kitchen or ride a fucking bus now and again..."? Especially if one is in the habit of rabble-rousing about the Institutionally-created gulf that separates the rich from the poor, I mean to say?
For all that, it's a matter of conscience - and Mr Carr has never made any attempt to be too much of a "nice guy", has he? I don't know what he's actually like as a human being, and if he wants to be as slimy, self-serving, and repugnant as his stage persona undoubtedly is in his personal life, that's his business. It does, however, pretty much preclude him from taking part in any further discussions of financial ethics - unless, of course, he wants to use his "gifts" to show us how side-splitting it is to be one of "them" and how there's nothing funnier in all the world than being too thick and poor to have an accountant who knows what's what tax-wise.
If Channel Four are going to inflict another series of that 10 O'Clock Live abomination upon us, I sincerely hope that Carr will not be amongst the line-up; he's simply lost any shred of credibility that mugging unctuously at the Jubilee Concert might have left him - and that was precious little, anyway.
If Channel Four are going to inflict another series of that 10 O'Clock Live abomination upon us, I sincerely hope that Carr will not be amongst the line-up; he's simply lost any shred of credibility that mugging unctuously at the Jubilee Concert might have left him - and that was precious little, anyway.
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